By Li Hongmei
A former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for "revealing highly classified surveillance programs" has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government said Sunday.
The SAR government did not identify the country. Snowden, who has been in hiding in Hong Kong for several weeks since he revealed information on the highly classified spy programs, has talked of seeking asylum in Iceland.
However, Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency cited an unidentified Aeroflot official as saying Snowden would fly from Moscow to Cuba on Monday and then on to Caracas, Venezuela. The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group tweeted that Snowden was "over Russian air space" and later said in a statement he was bound for an unnamed "democratic nation via a safe route for the purpose of asylum."
The White House had no immediate comment about Snowden's departure, which came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and gave a pointed warning to Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in the U.S.
The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel."
It acknowledged the U.S. extradition request, but said U.S. documentation did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law." It said additional information was requested from Washington, but since the Hong Kong government "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."
The statement said Hong Kong had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure. It added that it wanted more information about alleged hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by U.S. government agencies which Snowden had revealed.
In the meantime, China says it is "gravely concerned" over cyber attacks by US government agencies after new allegations they snooped on Chinese targets.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said yesterday the latest reports "again proved that China is the victim of cyber attacks, and we have already lodged representations to the US side," according to Xinhua news agency.
The remarks followed claims by Edward Snowden made to Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post that US spies had hacked Tsinghua University in Beijing - home to one of six "network backbones" that route all Internet traffic on China's mainland - and the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which operates one of the Asia-Pacific region's largest fiber-optic networks.
Xinhua described the US as the world's "biggest villain" for IT espionage, after the new allegations emerged. "These, along with previous allegations, are clearly troubling signs," it said in a commentary.
"They demonstrate that the United States, which has long been trying to play innocent as a victim of cyber attacks, has turned out to be the biggest villain in our age," it said.
The US and China are both victims of hacking and have to work together on the issue.
But it stressed: "The ball is now in Washington's court. The US government had better move to allay the concerns of other countries."
